The ex-Pavement man comes up with a winner for his
fourth solo album, largely because he now has a bunch
of players around him who can realise his ideas. Not
that the material isn’t consistently interesting
too, from the jazzy, improvisatory feel of opener
‘Dragonfly Pie’, or the title track, to
the garage-proggy mash-up of ‘Baltimore’.
or single ‘Gardenia’. Songs don’t
end when you think they’re going to, melodies
are bent out of shape, with angular, unpredictable
arrangements. Sonic Youth would be the nearest reference
point, but this is even more fluid, like a less staccato
Tom Verlaine. In short, it’s something of a
‘jam’ album, but without entirely abandoning
structure. Still, if three minutes is your cut off
attention span, you might want to look elsewhere.